Bentley Systems has announced the availability of OpenGround Cloud, a new cloud service that enables geotechnical professionals to access reliable geotechnical data.
OpenGround Cloud offers a complete geotechnical solution for planning, data entry, borehole log production, lab data management, reporting, visualisation, and more.
The cloud service improves collaboration across multi-disciplinary project teams and significantly increases the value of geotechnical data by making it easily accessible to key project stakeholders.
Geotechnical project team dynamics and the applications and services they require to manage natural resources are changing rapidly.
Relevant geotechnical data is typically dispersed across various applications and devices and can be awkward to gather and consolidate, complicating the effective and timely use of this data.
Now, with OpenGround Cloud, geotechnical engineers can readily access reliable, high-quality current and historical geotechnical data for the modelling, simulation, and analysis of infrastructure projects’ ground conditions.
Data-driven assessments
Scott Devoe, senior director, geotechnical information management at Bentley Systems, said: “OpenGround Cloud provides a single enterprise repository of multiple data sources for all ground investigation projects—a long-sought improvement for geotechnical and geological professionals.
“It eliminates the need to retain copies or to exchange data and ensures that everyone in the supply chain has the correct access rights to the most current version.
“As a result, OpenGround Cloud helps minimise project delays due to encountering unforeseen ground risks during construction.”
Richard O’Brien, principal process engineer with Atkins, commented: “From a risk management perspective, we are now able to more easily identify the gaps in data, to highlight risk items and, if required, assist in the planning of targeted ground investigations.
“From the tender process, when local site data availability is limited, through to detailed design, we are now able to undertake data-driven assessments to aid in our decision-making.”
O’Brien added: “OpenGround Cloud gives us the ability to determine and cross-reference the organisation’s geotechnical parameters and correlations with those available from literature sources.
“Tender design is made more efficient and we can consider a wider range of site properties leading to reductions in geotechnical risk.
“Ground investigations are planned more effectively taking into consideration multidiscipline and multi-project data leading to reduced costs.
“And, detailed designs are delivered from a more complete perspective, which leads to greater value for the client.”
Cedric Allenou, ground engineering lead at Lower Thames Crossing, commented: “OpenGround Cloud improved the workflow for all members of the team.
“The various add-ins are faster within the cloud version of the database, which is useful when dealing with large datasets such as CPT data.”
Allenou added: “In addition, maintaining the link with the database when members of other organisations need to access the data has also improved the workflow due to the servers being cloud-based.
“As a result, external support teams can more easily solve issues that arise. The process allows rapid responses and minimises potential downtime on the project.”